KODACHROMESBY TEDSPIEGEL,RAPHOGUILLUMETTE(C N.G .S .
"From the fury of the Northmen deliver us, O Lord!" The prayer, com
mon in ninth-century France, seemed answered at Chartres during a battle
in 911. After daring raids along the Seine (left), the Viking Hrolf sailed up
the Eure to attack the wealthy city. When a bishop rushed to the battlements
waving a standard-a relic believed to be the Virgin Mary's veil-legend
tells that the Vikings panicked and fled. Actually, Frankish reinforcements
drove them off. The candle-lit reliquary of the Virgin's Veil in Chartres
Cathedral (above) shows the bishop brandishing the cloth.
"Ships past counting voyage up the Seine, and throughout the entire
region evil grows strong," wrote a monk in the 860's of the ravaging fleets.
Viking bands often headquartered on islands such as these near Jeufosse.
Desperate, Frankish King Charles the Simple bought off the powerful Hrolf
in 911, giving him the lands that became known as Normandy. The Viking
pledged his fealty in return. William the Conqueror, a descendant of Hrolf,
conquered England in 1066, the same year that Norway's King Harald
Hardraada was slain by the English at Stamford Bridge.
523